Easter In Croatia

For me, Easter means the time of the greatest of joys, the time of new life and new hopes, the time of (nature) awakening, possibly new decisions, positive thinking and beautiful traditions that confirm where I come from and who I am. It is like that for most people in Croatia; an opportunity to gather the family and remember that love keeps us together. It is like that in every country celebrating Christianity and every country has its own special “little” things of culture and tradition that make is distinct.

Home dyed Easter Eggs

One of the things that mark Croatian Easter tradition is definitely home made dyed eggs. In Croatia, they are called pisanice (literally translated into English: written upon). This Slavic egg decorating custom dates back to pagan times. Almost every home has their own home-dyed eggs and when visiting your friend’s or family house during Easter time, it’s tradition to bring some of your home made dyed eggs. Then they are exchanged and brought home as a souvenir from every visit.

On Easter day, a traditional game is played in which at least two people choose eggs and hold them vertically while one person lightly taps the end of the other egg with their end, to see whose will crack. Anyone whose egg cracks must choose another and then tap the other person’s egg, and they continue until all the eggs have been used and cracked but the last one. Whoever holds the strongest egg in the end, which has not been cracked, wins.

Croatian Easter Eggs“PISANICE”Designs with hot wax drawing

Eggs are a symbol of spring awakening and new beginnings, new life. The most popular “old-fashioned” way to dye eggs is to boil a pot of water together with a lot of red onion skins, which will give the eggs orange/red colour. The next step is to take each egg and put a clover or parsley leaf on its surface. Here’s where it gets interesting: you secure the leaf not by gluing it to the egg, but by putting everything into nylon tights. You put everything into a pot of boiling water with onion skins and cook. The tights not only secure leaves, but also let the water colour the eggs. Or, if you want striations on eggs then wrap onion skins around the raw egg held by elastic band or kitchen twine before dropping the room-temperature raw egg into boiling water. When they’re done, let them cool, remove the tights and leaves and you’ll get a red egg with leaf print on it; or striations if you boiled them with onion skins tied to them. It’s quite decorative and the process is fun. Another traditional way of decorating Easter eggs is to use hot liquid wax and pencil-like instruments. You need to make sure that eggs are clean and dry. You take wax and melt it, dip your pen into the melted wax and draw different patterns on eggshells. Then you cook them in coloured water- the wax will melt and leave beautiful designs, while the rest of eggs will be coloured. In the end, polish it with some vegetable oil, the colour will be nice and shiny.

And then, of course, there are those absolutely beautiful Croatian giant Easter eggs that adorn city squares in Croatia and museums throughout Europe – these works of art are always the product of groups of Croatian naïve artists and usually depict cultural, environmental and religious parts of local life.

One of the joyous Easter traditions (especially for children) is egg hunt on the Easter morning. Parents tell the children a rabbit tale: the story of the Easter rabbit who leaves eggs in the garden and chocolates for children. Every Easter morning, they search for eggs and chocolate presents, all excited.

Croatian Easter Cake/Bread

Traditional CroatianEaster BreakfastBlessed at church before eating

As far as the food is concerned, traditionally ham and eggs are eaten, with radishes, spring onions and horseradish sauce. The day before Easter, Roman Christians go to a late night mass carrying a basket of traditional food (bread, ham, eggs). During the mass, priests bless the food, which are kept for the next morning to eat. An Easter Sunday would not be complete in Croatia without the special, exquisitely tasting Easter cake or Easter bread – a tasty reward after the season of Lent, penance and going without ones favourite or chosen treats as form of fasting.
Happy Easter Everyone! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Comments

Happy Easter! Loved your post. I am orthodox, and this year the Orthodox Church celebrates Easter on 1st of May. These day my heart is with all my Christians brothers and sisters, who celebrate Easter.

They are Andy – absolutely stunning pieces of art. New ones come out every year as groups of naive artists across Croatia complete the joint project of one giant egg per artist “colony” – I am particularly happy knowing they don’t go into dark storage after Easter season but into museums and various displays throughout Europe.

Happy Easter Ina. Since your post is by far the best I have seen so far, and certainly better than anything I could produce, allow me please to share it in Croatia any beyond. Happy Easter to family & friends and friends of family & friends wherever you may be on the globe.

Thanks for this cultural post on Croatian Easter customs. 🙂 For us in the US, Easter customs include attending church, egg hunts and baskets for kids, candy, and going out for brunch or dinner.
I think Easter was on the same date for Catholics and Orthodox Christians a year or so ago.
To one and all: Joyeux Paques! Happy Easter!

What a delightful Post Ina.. Such beautiful artistry in those egg paintings.. A wonderful tradition.. May we each hope for New Life and New Beginnings to Spring forward in Peace throughout our world..
Sending love and Joy to you Ina.. many thanks for sharing these traditions with us..
And I hope you enjoyed a very Happy Easter
Love Sue ❤

Happy Easter Ina just added this fabulous post to friends news such wonderful customs you have in your country makes us in the UK who rely on shops selling the customary chocolate egg look so lame – I travelled abroad and saw a number of countries but learn more from bloggers like you about futons than ever before … Thanks Ian short link to your post here God Bless .. http://wp.me/p4NphM-2iX

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Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. Here I will bring to you a variety of topics covering the documented truth about that terrible war that Croatia had to endure during the period between 1991 and 1995 and about Croatian political history that shaped a wonderful nation of people.

Croatian people wanted independence for centuries, just as they had it until the twelfth century but fate was not on their side – others wanted their beautiful land. In late 1980′s the will to break free from Yugoslavia which suffocated freedom and self determination through harsh communist party rule finally bore the desired fruit.

In June 1991 Croatia declared its independence; soon after the aggressive war against Croatia broke out. The struggle of the Croatian people for self-determination was a just one. But I fear genuine justice has not been served as there have been, and there still exist, international covert and overt moves to equate victims with aggressors continue in attempts to change history. Truth often becomes obscured and lost and that is why I have chosen to write this blog, to concentrate on actual events and issues about Croatia – wishing it a bright and freedom-loving future.

It certainly was not easy to come out of the war that was fought on two fronts:

1. On the military front the world’s public has seen the indiscriminate bombardment of Croatian cities, towns and villages from land, sea and air; the destruction of civilian targets including homes, schools, hospitals, churches, factories and cultural monuments; the blockading and destruction of roads, bridges and ports; the blockading of power, water, food and medical supplies. What hasn’t been shown on our television sets is the forced clearing and evacuation of towns and villages, followed by looting, torture, rape and murder carried out by the Serbian forces, who were initially backed by the federal Yugoslav army that was largely constituted by Serb nationals; the transportation of multiple hundreds of innocent Croatian civilians from Croatia into concentration camps Serbia (Begejci, Stajicevo, Sremska Mitrovica... from October 1991, and later (1992) transferred into Serb-held camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Omarska, Keratern, Manjaca, Trnopolje).

2. The second front was the war of political propaganda centred on: misinformation about the rights of minorities in Croatia; portrayal of the Croatian people as Ustasha or Fascists; the representation of the Croatian defence forces as illegal paramilitary units; the representation of the Croatian and Slovenian republics as unreasonable secessionists who are unwilling to negotiate; a regurgitation of distorted facts about World War II.

Indeed Croatia had an absolute right to defend itself and this is often forgotten if not often denied it.

Ina Vukic

Ina has been a tireless volunteer on humanitarian aid and fundraising for victims of war in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially war orphans. From1991 to beginning of 1994 she contributed in lobbying for international recognition of Croatian independence and Croatia’s rights in defending its territory and people from military aggression by Serbian forces. For this dedicated voluntary work Ina was awarded two Medals of Honour by the first president of the Republic of Croatia in 1995 (Commemorative Medal of the Homeland War and Order of the Croatian Trefoil).Ina has also written hundreds articles for newspapers in Australia and Croatia on the plight of Croatian people for freedom and self-determination, developing democracy in former communist countries. She holds two graduate and one post-graduate university degrees, specialising in behaviour, clinical and political psychology and management.

Blessed Aloysius Stepinac quote:

“When they take everything from you, you’ll be left with two hands; put them together in prayer and then you’ll be the strongest.” Blessed Aloysius Stepinac (1898 – 1960)

First President of Croatia Dr Franjo Tudjman quote:

“They could not, nor will they ever be able to kill our passion and our need to live in human dignity, in peace with ourselves and with the free nations of Europe. We have carved out that right at our first democratic elections. For this right and for our sacred land we are even ready to die” – Dr Franjo Tudjman (1922-1999) ( Addressing the Croatian nation at the moment of the start of Serbian aggression against Croatia, 16 October 1991)

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